The Takeover Thread - Duchatelet Finally Sells (Jan 2020)

N01R4M said:

sinceiwasyoung said:

Is this excellent news though ? EFL is powerless to get the club sold . It is down to RD alone , and his stubborness to reduce the price of the club .

I have no doubt RD trotted out to the EFL his usual mantra that the protesters are a group of disgruntled ex-employees followed sheep-like by a small (2%) minority of the fans. It is excellent that CARD have an opportunity to show this to be the falsehood it is.

Yes, the EFL cannot force the sale of the club, but if they recognise the fan protests for the mass-movement they have been, then it will go a long way towards shooting that particular fox of Roland's - and I dare say there are those who will make sure the message gets back to his cronies, employees, and fellow townsfolk of St. Truiden.

While things are quiet off the pitch and things are progressing nicely on the pitch, there is no real incentive for him to sell. Make things less comfortable for him and his ego, and the balance of his stubbornness may, just may, shift.

Excellent post.

I was one of the CAST delegation that went to the EFL. Harvey was very keen to establish "what our relationship with CARD is". Doubtless, having established that CAST is represented by neo-pensioners with middle-class accents who understand what a P&L account is, he stepped up the search for the kind of far-left anarchists that RD has portrayed CARD as. I am confident that after this meeting he will come to the conclusion that they are a figment of RD's imagination. Obviously Harvey and John Nagle (a perceptive and empathetic guy who clearly understands supporter "tribes") now expect to meet the people who organise the protests. That's fine. They will discover that protests are led by reasonable, articulate people who have been driven to distraction, and really just want to enjoy their football. The EFL have at least realised that it's in their interests too that CARD should have no reason to exist.

Having established that they are not dealing with either the Socialist Workers Party or cohorts of an over-exposed hooligan from Luton, you'd hope the discussion can turn to what the EFL can do to help us. Unfortunately that seems to me to be a much bigger challenge to get something from the meeting. The most important takeout we got from our meet, IMO is that the EFL current ODT does not assess capability of an owner, still less is there mechanism for the EFL to track and influence how that capability is being maintained by existing owners. It will be interesting if the CARD people hear anything which suggests the EFL are moving to change that. I doubt it myself. In which case the question back to the EFL (whether it is articulated or not) is, "if you can't help us, where do we turn?".

Good luck, team.